2-wire modems don't work with Apple?

Question

Never had an Internet problem until I moved 3 weeks ago.  Since then my 12 mbps signal drops constantly.  AT&T Uverse have been to my new house 20 days straight trying to fix it (their monitoring shows the signal drops [goes away] sometimes every 2 or 3 minutes, ever since they connected it 20 days ago).  They have rewired my house (new cat5e drops, everything from the street to the house to the RJ45), and also  redid fiber-to-copper-to-street from telephone poles.  (I don't know the technical terms, but that's the gist of it, as they explained it to me.)  The AT&T guy says 2-wire modems won't work with Apple computers, and that might be the actual cause of the problems.  I find that hard to understand, since I had the same modem also using Uverse at my old address, for four years, with no problems.  So they've added a Cisco router, creating a second wifi within my house.  Now I get steady signal with Cisco, but it's 3.4 mbps.
I now am having problems streaming already-rented movies to my AppleTV.  The one I tried to watch tonight stops every 5 minutes or so and buffers for at least another 5 minutes each time.  That makes it tough to watch the movie.
Does anybody know if this buffering issue is because of slow wifi?  Or is it related to wifi at all?  If not, what else could it be?  I started this movie about 2 hours ago, so I now have 22 hours left on the rental, and at this rate I'll be up all night trying to watch it.
Thanks.

Answer 1

I've used U-verse and the same 2-Wire modem for 4 years without any problems.  I am about 1800 feet from the VRAD (box, usually on a street corner, that connects the last mile copper to the fiber which goes to the CO).
So you have to ask U-verse just how far are you from the VRAD. The service does degrade somewhat the further you are from the VRAD (limit about 3000 to 4000 feet) and of course the quality of the copper between you and the VRAD.
Also, for questions like this, which are more U-vers problems than mac problems I suggest posting at the two primary U-verse forums:
AT&T U-verse Forums
Uverseusers.com